Large mammalian herbivores (LMH) shape vertebrate communities and structure food webs in many terrestrial ecosystems. However, the mechanisms that underlie the effects of LMH on other vertebrates are poorly understood. In France, domestic LMH have grazed alpine and mountain grasslands for thousands of years, profoundly influencing landscapes and wildlife. As LMH modify habitat structure, favour ...

Despite great promise for understanding the impacts and extent of climate change on aquatic animals, their species, and ecological communities, it is surprising that tracking tools, like biotelemetry and biologging devices, have not been extensively used to understand climate change or develop and evaluate potential interventions that may forestall or mitigate its effects. In this review, we provide ...

Knowledge about the breeding biology and potential threats on the breeding grounds is important for conservation of threatened species. The main breeding range of the Lesser White-fronted Goose Anser erythropus (LWFG) forms a belt along the southern part of the Russian arctic and, although their main nesting habitat has been described based on observations of broods or pairs with breeding behaviour, ...

The geological history of Sinai is complicated and differs from the other parts of the Arabian Nubian Shield. Some rocks in Sinai have a signature from the Grenvillian crust, as evidenced in Wadi Seih area. The ultimate objective of this research is to clarify the progression of episodic island arc accretion events from the amalgamation of Rodinia to the assembly of Gondwana supercontinent.Geochemical, ...

Phthalates are used in plastics, found throughout the marine environment and have the potential to cause adverse health effects. In the present study, we quantified blubber concentrations of 11 phthalates in 16 samples from stranded and/or free-living marine mammals from the Norwegian coast: the killer whale (Orcinus orca), sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus), long-finned pilot whale (Globicephala ...

The heating and moistening of inhaled air, and the cooling and moisture removal from exhaled air, are crucial for the survival of animals under severe environmental conditions. Arctic mammals have evolved specific adaptive mechanisms to retain warmth and water and restrict heat loss during breathing. Here, the role of the porous turbinates of the nasal cavities of Arctic and subtropical seals is ...

There is a push for transition to sustainable blue food systems in the High North. An interdisciplinary group of Fram Centre researchers have looked closer at the drivers motivating the transition and identified a set of barriers to sustainable blue food systems in northern Norway.

The Early Miocene Upper Marine Molasse (OMM) in south-western Germany contains a diverse fossil ecosystem in which elasmobranch teeth are especially abundant. However, the scarcity of outcrops and sometimes poor preservation of fossils resulted in scant recent literature about the OMM. Here, we focus on the elasmobranch fauna to determine the trophic relationships within the OMM, using fossil ...

Ruminants are dependent on their gut microbiomes for nutrient extraction from plant diets. However, knowledge about the composition, diversity, function, and spatial structure of gut microbiomes, especially in wild ruminants, is limited, largely because analysis has been restricted to faeces or the rumen. In two geographically separated reindeer subspecies, 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing revealed ...

Strong seasonality is a key feature of high-latitude systems like the Barents Sea. While the interannual variability and long-term changes of the Barents Sea are well-documented, the seasonal progression of the physical and biological systems is less known, mainly due to poor accessibility of the seasonally ice-covered area in winter and spring. Here, we use an extensive set of physical and biological ...